Our Founding Fathers and the Sanctity of Human Life

by Ron F. Hale

**This article was originally published at the Christian Index and is used by permission.

The United States Declaration of Independence gushes with life liberating language supporting the sanctity of human life for all U.S. citizens. The second paragraph begins with these remarkable words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We can’t understand what it feels like to be born in a time when America was divided up between freeman and slave. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery around 1818, and escaped human bondage becoming a famous orator in the American antislavery movement. After serious study of the text of the Declaration of Independence, Douglass grew hopeful while other abolitionists assailed the document as bygone dribble.

Douglass held high the precepts and promises of the Declaration of Independence and spoke truth to power. Like a Jonas Salk holding up his miracle vaccine against poliomyelitis (polio) before the American people on March 26, 1953, with all its curative promise, years before, Douglass held up the Declaration of Independence to all America and spoke so eloquently of its benefits and blessings (for all).

Holding high this mighty moral mirror, Douglass reflected the founding promises of this document into the face of America. In essence, America had to “put up” or “shut up” – for, if the American Negro was indeed a man (human being), then he too is endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights!

Douglass’ wellspring of wisdom and way with words helped the righteous to see the wounds of wickedness that the institution of chattel slavery had inflicted on this young nation.

As a young boy, I heard a 20th century orator’s voice emanating from a black & white television – the haunting speech of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in his “I Have A Dream” speech declaring that:

We have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

America has another “check to cash” on the promissory note that our Founding Fathers placed in the Bank called “Certain Unalienable Rights.” America’s unborn must again fall heir to their promised birthright of Life, Liberty, and their pregnant pursuit of Happiness.

Do America’s unborn have any constitutional or human rights? When do these rights begin? When are the unborn legally viable? Can a woman and her doctor decide to abort an eight-month-old unborn weighing seven lbs. in the womb? Must this very mature unborn person suffer more than a convicted serial murderer on death row? When was the last time you heard of the American Justice System being responsible for the dismemberment of a convicted killer’s body before leaving the death chamber (and with specificity in harvesting vital organs)?

New York Times columnist Alan Rappaport writes an April 4, 2016, article entitled “Hillary Clinton Roundly Criticized for Referring to the Unborn as a ‘Person.’” Rappaport hones in on Chuck Todd’s question to Senator Clinton concerning abortion restrictions and rights of the unborn in America, and she said, “The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.”

Hillary’s verbal slip-of-the-tongue veered briefly from the pro-choice glossary – for she used that utterly humane word: person.

The Times article quotes Diana Arellano, community engagement manager for Planned Parenthood of Illinois on Twitter saying, “Hillary Clinton further stigmatizes abortion … She calls a fetus an ‘unborn child’ and calls for later term restrictions.” Arellano’s words are reminiscent of the proslavery defenders of Frederick Douglass’s day in claiming the Negro was sub-human, beast, or thing.

Frederick Douglass helped America see that the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were antislavery documents!

Reverend King’s dream helped us feel that his four little children could one day live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

The declarations and documents of our Founding Fathers are harbingers of hope – for we are All “created” equal. Yes, these unalienable Rights by our Creator are promised before our birth!

In the name of God, America’s little black unborns, and little white unborns, and little brown unborns, and every little person of color deserve that holy hedge of protection from the abortionist’s embryotomy scissors and a chance for their promised pursuit of Happiness!

America can now discern that slavery hurt both slave and free.

Can America discern that if we do not to protect the “Wee little ones” among us – then why should God bless “We the people?”